American, educated, gets employed (4)
I believe the answer is:
used
'employed' is the definition.
('use' can be a synonym of 'employ')
'american educated' is the wordplay.
'american' becomes 'us' (abbreviation for United States).
'educated' becomes 'ed' (I've seen this in other clues).
'us'+'ed'='USED'
'gets' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for used that I've seen before include "with some traffic" , "Second-hand, not new" , "worked unfairly" , "Pre-owned" , "given employment" .)